ANTHROPOIDEA. 27 



median nerve. What may be the object of this ar- 

 rangement I will not pretend to explain ; nor do I be- 

 lieve an avowed evolutionist can give a satisfactory ex- 

 planation of the uses of the arrangement. It has been 

 alleged that protection to the nerve and vessel was 

 secured by the peculiar disposition of parts ; but I can 

 not see why the dog and the rabbit should not need 

 the favor as well as the cat and the lemur. 



In the humerus of man there is occasionally met 

 an abnormal state which approaches a normal condi- 

 tion in the lower animals that possess a perforation of 

 the humeral condyles. At a point two inches above 

 the internal condyle, a spur of bone springs from the 

 shaft of the humerus just inside the condyloid ridge, 

 and projects like a hook with its point directed down- 

 ward. This spur of bone, which may be called the 

 sup ra-condylar process, is a third of an inch in length, 

 and its point is connected with the internal condyle 

 by a ligament that leaves a foramen beneath it, or be- 

 tween it and the bone. The ligament corresponds to 

 what is osseous in the adult cat. In the young of the 

 felidce the foramen is bounded in part by a segment of 

 ligamentous tissue. 



When the supra-condylar process exists in man 

 the brachial artery and median nerve pass behind it, 

 and through the foramen, thus imitating what is nor- 

 mal in marsupial, feline, and certain of the lower Simi- 

 adce and cebidce. Normally the Gibbons, the Orang, 

 the Chimpanzee, the Gorilla, and the larger cebidce do 

 not possess a supra-condylar foramen, but exceptions 

 occasionally exist in each of these, yet whether oftener 

 than in man's organization remains to be discovered 

 by extended observations. It would be a point in 

 favor of the evolution theory if it could be shown that 



